Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader will, first, apologize to the AirMarshal for writing a long post and pushing his posts towards the bottom of the page. But, since the day is here, this must written now.

Many of you know that the Big Hominid is the Poet Laureate of the Mike World Order. He has on occasion been known to sing the praises of your Maximum Leader, and even tell of your Maximum Leader’s heroic origins.

Allow your Maximum Leader to return the favour.

As we have all learned from Joseph Campbell, there are archetypes within the various religious and spiritual traditions of the world. After much careful research, your Maximum Leader can now illuminate for you, his dear minions, the similarities in the Big Hominid creation myth from the various world traditions.

According to the Nordic tradition, from the Ginnungagap (the emptiness) came Audhumla. Audhumla was the first creature, the primeval cow in fact. From Audhumla’s teats flowed the four rivers of milk which fed the next creature, Ymir the frost giant. Ymir spawned many frost giants who inhabited the world and became the enemies of the gods. During the time of the frost giants Audhumla found a salt lick to sustain herself. As she licked the salt, she created the first man, Buri. In time Buri found a mate and their child Bor was the father of the god Odin (Wotan for you Wagnerians out there). But after the creation of Buri, the tale of Audhumla fades. Your Maximum Leader has pieced together ancient runes and discovered that after creating Buri from the salt lick, Audhumla became constipated. She wandered throughout Midgard and Asgard seeking relief. After the Gods defeated the frost giants, Audhumla was found near Valhalla by Thor. Seeing her constipated state, Thor struck Audhumla on the flank with his hammer. A great torrent of manure flew from Audhumla. The manure mixed on the earth with her life-giving milk and formed a great boiling pit. Seeing the festering pit, the god Odin foresaw the eventual coming of a great being who would alternately use his powers equally for good and ill. Odin foresaw that the lquid would coalesce into a child. A child who would be known by his nom-de-blog, the Big Hominid…

According to the Greco-Roman tradition, Cronos (the titan and ruler of the heavens) ate the children he produced with his wife-sister Rhea. But Rhea determined to save one of her children. So she gave a stone wrapped in swaddling clothes to Cronos. Cronos, distracted by Gaia the earth-mother doing a striptease, ate the stone thinking it was his newborn son. The son grew to be Zeus. Zeus, in a fit of teenaged pique, faught his father and forced him to vomit up his siblings (Poseidon, Hades, Hera, Hestia, and Demeter); who joined Zeus in deposing his father and becoming the ruling gods. The little known postscript to this tale is that after vomiting up the siblings of Zeus, Cronos shat out the stone he’d eaten believing it to be Zeus. The feces-encrusted stone fell to the earth and it landed in the sea. The titan feces mixed with the same sea foam that would later spawn Aphrodite. The floating morass of titan feces infused sea foam drifted across the seas. It caused the destruction of Atlantis, and helped keep the sea monster Kraken entombed in the sea. But its greatest creation would come much later. That creation/spawn was to be the scatalogically preordained being, the Big Hominid…

According to the Indian tradition, Vishnu was walking one day and a lotus flower blossomed from his navel. Brahma sprung forth from the lotus blossom and set about creating the world. The oft forgotten part of the story is that after the lotus flower sprang forth from Vishnu’s navel, a Titan Arum blossomed from his anus and from that odourous flower were sprung a line of men who would join together the world of spirituality and scatology. It is said that this line of men continues to this day, and that the Big Hominid is known in some parts of rual India and Nepal as the 69th incarnation of the Rectali Lama…

Now you all can see the similarities of the various Hominidal creation stories. Accept them for what they are. And be joyous in your celebration of the anniversary of the birth of the one and only Big Hominid.

I know that MaxLead, SmallHolder and the Foreign Minister are all Fathers, as am I.

So I was discussing baby issues with a Female co-worker. I won’t go into details, except to say it was a poop related problem. The co-worker has no kids, and no practical baby experience. Yet she saw fit to lecture me on how to deal with this particular issue. And this is a common thing. At a cookout at a friends house on Sunday I was talking about our 7 week old baby, and when telling someone about the poop issue, I got the standard Mother response. “Did you try A? Did you do B? C works?” forget the fact that I was telling the story to set up a joke, I get the “You’re a Dad, and an idiot, and you need to be lectured” attitude. Granted, she didn’t mean it that way, but the undercurrent is there.

Many women seem to assume that they know more about dealing with any child then any man. Not ALL women, of course. And I do my fair share of second guessing other parents, but I think that’s normal.

A friend of ML’s and mine tells a story along these lines. Details may be sketchy on my part, but the gist is what’s important. He’s at a mall with his two daughters. One is fussy. A mother near by comes to “help him” calm his daughter down, and tries to take her out of his arms, seemingly assuming she could deal better than he with it. Now seriously, who do you think a fussy 3 year old would prefer? Her father, or some stranger?

Now I accept that many women, indeed most mothers, know more than I about Children in general. But there is only one person to whom I will deferwhen talking about my own children, and that is my wife.

The French are dealing with Terrorist/Kidnappers protesting a French Law. The law in protest effectively bans religious symbols in schools, including crucifixes, and skull caps. In this wonderful land, with our First Amendment rights, the law would probably be unconstitutional, but this is the French we’re talking about. So ban those hats, and scarves and crucifixes. Truth be told, I doubt they’d enforce it with regard to Catholic symbols.

However, how best to protest the law? How about kidnapping a couple of Frenchman and decapitating them on Al Jazeera? Sounds like a plan. Despite the fact that decapitation may actually improve a Frenchman’s odor, this truly is deplorable.

If France gives in, and repeals the law (which would be the right thing to do, for other reasons) then Europeans will have once again emboldened terrorism. If France doesn’t give in, then of course, we’ll be blames some how.

But I really wonder what the Terrorists are hoping to achieve. I believe that in their minds this IS a cultural war, and they hope to “defeat” the west in some way… yet there are no tangible goals. The terrorists cannot hope to win in any absolute sense, and ultimately they will lose, it’s just a question of when. They can still inflict real dammage on us, though the most serious consequences are probably outside their realm of comprehension.

I think the worst thing they can result from this, for America, is a reduction of Civil Liberties resulting from things like the Patriot Act. I don’t know if we’ve gone too far yet, but I could see it hapening. Paradoxically, the worst thing the Terrorists could do from their point of view is stage another high profile attack. Such a thing would result in US public oppinion shifting squarely behind retaliation, and a thorough ass kicking would be the result. Throughout Afghanistan and Iraq, the US Military “kept it’s gloves on”, being very careful to do its best in selecting targets, and attempting to reduce civilian casualties to a level never before seen in warfare. At some point, I get the feeling we’d say “fuck it” and just kick ass.

So I post, and then Small holder feels the need to post barely 6 minutes later. What’s more, he’s blathering on about how many problems he has posting. If you can’t cut and paste, then maybe you should go back to fertilizing your fields.

At least wait a respectable amount of time before you post.

You’ll see… I’ll wait until you post one of your long winded rants on Bovine artificial insemination, or whatever, and then I’ll snow you under and blast you into the archives.

Every time I cut and paste into the blogger posting box, the displayed post has all sorts of funny symbols replacing the punctuation. I don’t have this problem on my other blog so it must be specific to Nakedvillainy’s blogskin. Maximum Leader, PUHLEASE ask Francey to help solve this problem. It is really annoying to have to go back into the post editor to individually change dozens of punctuation marks.

Silly me, I thought ML was posting about SHAKIRA, so I was looking for some hot, latin, booty shaking pics. Oh well. Now that women’s beach volleyball is over, I guess I’m in withdrawal.

Anyway,

Islamic Courts have no place in a Western Society, as they exist in the Arab world, and isn’t that the only precedent we have? Maybe they can function here in a fair way, but I strongly doubt it. First of all, and last of all, there is no precedent for a recognition of anything secular. If an Islamic Court were to function in the West in a healthy matter, it would have to understand it’s place in a Secular society. It can’t.

What an Islamic court will do is create a sub society living according to Islamic laws within a western culture. Ok, fine. Philosophically it’s their right to live as they want, however offensive we may find it. However, Sharia governs every aspect of life, doesnit it? So eventually these two sets of rules will clash. What if a non-Muslim steals from a Muslim? What if the Muslim demands justice in an Islamic court. In America, or Canada, that’s not his right. What if an Islamic court in Ohio decided to hang an Islamic teenager for making out after the Football game? Could we allow that to happen in America? No freaking way.

I believe that Islam, as a whole, is lodged in a medieval mindset, and this is one of the main reasons behind all the crap that the Middle East faces today. Not the only reason by a long shot, but Islam as a whole has the brakes on any process that can improve the lives of the Billion plus people living in poverty throughout the Arab world. It doesn’t help that Arab leaders are universally corrupt despots living a feudal lifestyle. Would the world tolerate Europeans living, and ruling, like the Saud family? Maybe. I don’t know.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader read this over at IMAO. So it is likely that most of you have already read over it. But wow! First Saudi Arabia, now Iran! What is up over there? Next thing you know those pan-arabist types will want to be exporting Sharia to the west.

I was late moving the cows to their new field. They were due to move Sunday morning but I had not yet subdivided the next field. They knew it was time to move and when I passed through their pasture on the way to check on my baby guinea keets, they protested loudly when I wouldn’t let them follow me through the gate. I explained that they would have to wait until after church. They were not pleased.

At some point Saturday night, one of the cows had pushed over the jerry-rigged hatch I had built to keep the keets in the coop. They are really curious creatures and I am sure there was no malice; they just wanted to know what was going on inside the barn. The opened hatch allowed the keets to escape into the pasture. As I tried to gather up the three-week-old delinquents, the cows kept coming over to push and rub on me. Annoying and highly amusing at the same time. I couldn’t keep from giggling as Bonnie knocked me out of a guinea-pouncing squat right into a manure plop.

I had people stop by after church to get vegetables. I gave away tomatoes, potatoes, basil, peppers, artichokes and parsley. Particularly tomatoes. I have them literally coming out the wazoo! (And boy is it painful)

The minister’s wife wanted to see the guineas, so we walked out to the barn to the accompaniment of bovine bellows and other forms of protest. I didn’t completely shut the barn door behind us to Bonnie, the Ayrshire Heifer wanted in Washington state, decided she was going to move herself to the next field whether I like it or not. I was inside the coop part of the barn when she nosed open the door, brushed past the startled preacher‚ÄövÑv¥s wife, and ambled out the other end of the barn into a new pasture, swinging her tail back and forth, pleased as punch with herself.

I joined her in the field and proceeded to cut back the lower limbs of several cedar trees in the new pasture. I like to get the limbs up high enough that I can mow under them without ducking and so that the ticks that like to live in the cedars (the ones not eaten by guineas) have a farther drop if they want to dive-bomb the cattle. The bare trunks also allow more sun penetration, increasing the growth of the undersown grass. Finally, it allows the shadows to shift around during the day so that the cows don’t congregate and pug up one spot. Bonnie watched my chainsaw work curiously in between bites of bluegrass and clover.

Once the lower limbs were out of the way, I strung three electric wires to subdivide the paddock. I usually only run one or two wires (depending on the topography) but will put in all future subdivisions with three wires since I will be acquiring sheep in a couple of weeks. With the gate installed and the electric connections made, I let the boys join bonnie and much adolescent frolicking ensured in the new pasture.

My next job was to tackle the multiflora in the next paddock in the rotation. Over the last couple of years, I have made a serious dent in the stuff, but there is an overgrown fence line, thick with cedars and big multiflora that I haven’t yet conquered. I can’t believe this noxious stuff was once purposefully introduced to farms. Kind of like Kudzu, I guess.

At any rate, the conventional wisdom is you have to bulldoze the plants and then spray the hell out of the exposed roots and any regrowth with herbicide. But I don’t have heavy equipment and won’t use herbicides. So it’s just me and my trusty shovel and pick against Lucifer’s own plant spawn. I use the shovel and clippers to cut the cane at ground level and then go after the thick, woody root crown with a pick. Some of the root crowns are solid wood about as wide around as a five-gallon bucket.

Even after this treatment, the stuff keeps coming back, so part of my every-other-day routine is to shovel out any regrowth in the just vacated paddocks. I do it at the same time that I am refilling the water containers, kicking manure, and checking for other weeds left behind by the cows.

I was cutting, hacking, and dragging vines out of the cedar canopy when my neighbor stopped by at about four o’clock. He had to get his hay up before it rained. Could I help?

Sure, I said.

Farmers will drop most anything to get a crop of hay in the barn before it is spoiled by precipitation. “Make hay while the sun shines” isn’t just a cute saying to us. I figured we would do a couple hours of work. Heh. We didn’t finish until midnight.

I’m no longer at my high-school fighting weight. Throwing the forty-pound square bales onto the back of the trucks and hay wagons didn’t turn out to be too hard (though it was a bit tricky on the fifth row up). What wore me out was walking behind the truck. Bales come out of the baler at about thirty or forty foot intervals. One person will drive a truck down the center of two rows and the bucker will run back and forth behind the truck, throwing (”bucking”) the bales on from either side. This was hard work. If any readers have ever done this job, you know what I’m talking about.

But hard physical labor can actually be fun and I really had a sense of accomplishment when, fifteen minutes after we had closed the barn door on the stacked hay, the skies opened up and a torrential downpour drenched the Batesville environs.

The only downside was waking up at five this morning.

But, tired as I am today, I wouldn’t trade this life for anything. I pity the ants of the world:

He wakes up in the morningDoes his teeth, bite to eat and he’s rollingNever changes a thingThe week ends, the week begins…Driving in on this highwayAll these cars and upon the sidewalkPeople in every directionNo words exchanged,No time to exchange when…All the little ants are marchingRed and black antennae wavingThey all do it the sameThey all do it the same way

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader happened to read the Niall Ferguson piece to which the Minister of Agriculture linked in the post below this one.

First of all, your Maximum Leader wouldn’t categorize it as a man-crush. He would categorize it as a mind-crush. Your Maximum Leader is drawn (like Oprah) to fascinating people. Ferguson is an original thinker and writer. That is why your Maximum Leader likes him. Which leads your Maximum Leader to his second point.

Secondly, Ferguson is completely wrong on this count. People (both sharp intellectuals like Ferguson, and dull cretins like many of the protestors of the Republican Convention interviewed on TV) have been predicting how the re-election of president so-and-so or prime minister whats-his-name will spell certain doom for their party.

Your Maximum Leader remembers how many commentators in 1984 were predicting that the Republican Party had hit its high water mark. Re-electing Reagan would break apart the party along social issues that split the so-called “economic conservatives” and the so-called “social conservatives.”

In 1996 it was the tension in the Democratic party between the Clintonista “New Democrats” and the “Democrats” that would rend the party to peices.

Ferguson’s WSJ peice is one of those great examples of making a historical analogy that really isn’t analogous. But as your Maximum Leader has said before, sometimes you try to draw together a set of historical circumstances, show their congruity to the present, and predict future activity from how the past and present appear to coalesce.

Sometimes the analogy works. Sometimes it doesn’t.

Alas people have been making the “The-best-thing-that-can-happen-to-the-Republican/Democratic-party-is-X-loosing-this-election” argument for so long that it is like a clanging cymbal that you learn to ignore.

Parties survive because they are inherently flexible and pragmatic. They also survive the internal pressures of conflicting ideology because they are, at best, loose confederations of more-or-less like-minded people who like to win more than they like to loose. American politicians are not party creatures like politicans are in other countries. They affiliate with parties because that is where the money is. Both parties are “big tents” and contain mulititudes and contradictions. People like (and vote for) politicians who are “their own man” and not craven to party interests. Politicians like being thought of as being “independent” and not beholden to anyone. So the parties just deal with it as best they can.

Talking with a friend and neighbor on Saturday, he argued that a Kerry Presidency would worsen the already problematic problem of military retention and recruitment.

The army is being devastated by the departure of mid-career NCOs and officers as a result of the tempo of deployments*. Recruitment is way down as young men realize that signing the bottom line may result in experiencing combat. My buddy worries that a Kerry presidency would make both problems much worse. Since those who don’t want to make the sacrifices necessary for a military career are either leaving or not signing up, the pool of current soldiers is even more conservative than usual. If they had to serve under Kerry, my friend argues, many would decide that, while they support their country, they don’t want to serve under that commander in chief.

He claimed that a similar increase of retirement/POS/unfulfilled recruiting quotas occurred under Clinton. Is anyone familiar with this? More data please.

* Full disclosure: If I hadn’t already completed my military service, I probably would be joining the exodus. I can’t imagine being separated from my daughter for a year at a time. Condemn me as an unpatriotic coward if you will.